Google Pushes Back Against Call to Break Up Chrome
In a heated courtroom face-off, Google made it clear: splitting off its Chrome browser isn’t on the table.
During final arguments in Washington, attorneys squared off before Judge Amit Mehta, who is weighing how to address last year’s decision that found Google had unfairly maintained its grip on online search.
Government lawyers argued that breaking off Chrome could reduce Google’s stronghold—especially as artificial intelligence starts playing a bigger role in how people find information online. They’re also pushing for Google to stop making exclusive deals with tech giants like Apple and Samsung, which keep its search engine front and center on millions of devices.
Google, on the other hand, says those drastic steps go too far.
Attorney John Schmidtlein, representing the company, pointed out that there’s no clear evidence users would switch search engines even if those default deals didn’t exist. He cited the example of Verizon pre-installing Chrome despite owning Yahoo’s search engine, and added that none of the trial’s many witnesses expressed interest in using Microsoft’s Bing as an alternative.
The Department of Justice sees things differently. Their lawyer, David Dahlquist, claimed Apple asked several times for more options beyond using Chrome but was repeatedly turned down. That, they argue, limited competition.
But Google believes a forced breakup would do more harm than good. They say it wouldn’t create real competition, but instead would chip away at innovation and weaken the experience for everyday users. Most of Chrome’s audience, they note, is outside the U.S.—so changes would have ripple effects far beyond American borders.
“If Chrome is broken off,” Schmidtlein said, “it won’t be the same product—and no one wins in that scenario.”
The debate is unfolding just as the world of search is evolving. AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity are offering new ways to answer user questions—posing fresh competition to Google. Even Apple’s services chief, Eddy Cue, testified that Google’s traffic on Apple devices dipped recently, something that hadn’t happened in over 20 years.
Still, the Justice Department insists they’re not trying to “cripple” Google. Their aim, they say, is to level the playing field so other players can compete.
Yet Google’s team argues that sharing its internal data—as the DOJ suggests—would mean handing over years of research and development. And that, they argue, simply isn’t a fair or balanced solution.
Judge Mehta now faces the tough job of deciding what fairness really looks like in a digital world where the rules keep changing.
